


sweet like candy

by Merideath



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pregnancy, Secret Relationship, like the tiniest bit of angst you've ever seen, sorry about your teeth, that is only ever so slightly a, this is all aenaria's fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 22:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8596243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merideath/pseuds/Merideath
Summary: The dress was fine a week ago.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [GlynnisIsta8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlynnisIsta8/gifts), [DizzyRedhead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyRedhead/gifts), [McGregorsWench](https://archiveofourown.org/users/McGregorsWench/gifts).



> Because we all need a bit extra sugar in our cinnamon rolls. 
> 
> Thank you Dizzy for betaing for me again. I really am the worst. 
> 
> And thank you to all my faithful readers who haven't charged me with their dental bills. <3

The dress was fine a week ago. It still fit now, sort of. The red jersey fabric clings to her body, emphasizing every curve and swell. There’s no time to find another dress. "Why do I have to go? I'm too fat."

"You're not fat, you’re pregnant, and when the king invites you to dinner you go," Jane says, helping Darcy with the clasp of her necklace. 

The necklace is a heavy piece of silver set with smokey quartz stones and etched with black lines depicting the constellation Perseus. It’s her favorite bit of jewellery that touches on the stars and the myths that she loves. 

"The King invited you, not me. I don't see why I can't just stay in my room. Sam said Steve will be here tomorrow," Darcy says, tugging at the top of her dress to try and make her cleavage not look obscene. Her hand drifts down to the swell of her belly. One more day and Steve would be there; he would finally know. She still doesn’t know if she’s excited or terrified. Mostly she just misses Steve and can’t wait to see him again. Three months and a life-changing revelation were more than enough.

The last time she had been with Steve, she hadn’t known she was pregnant, that there was quickening beneath her heart that was already two months gone. There had been no morning sickness. No sickness at all since the day after Darcy and Jane had gone out for a girls night and come home with food poisoning and Darcy had vomited up her birth control. 

“You look beautiful,” Jane says, fussing with the uncontrollable curls of Darcy’s hair. 

“I look like I swallowed a basketball.”

“You do not, Jane says tilting her head to the side. "A softball maybe."

“Thanks,” Darcy says grabbing up her capelet and throwing it over her shoulders. 

“You don’t need that,” Jane says, as she shoves her feet into strappy heels high enough to have snow on the tops. 

“I think you’ll find that I do,” Darcy says, giving a tiny twirl. The cape flares out in a circle and conceals the swell of her bump. She nods to herself. It’s not perfect, but it will have to do. It’s not so much that she wants to hide the bump, as that she doesn’t want to talk about it, not till Steve knows. God, what if he isn’t happy about it like she is? What if he doesn’t feel the way she feels? What if he doesn’t love her the way she thinks he does, the way she loves him. What if, what if, what if?

“Stop it. Whatever it is you’re thinking, just stop it,” Jane says, wrapping her arms around Darcy and hugging her tightly. “It’ll be okay.”  
“Promise?”

“Of course, Darce.”

....

Steve's jet arrives at the palace fifteen minutes later. He's tired, bone weary, but triumphant. It had taken weeks, but with Natasha's help, he'd found help for Bucky. A mutant with powers beyond what even Wanda was capable of. Unfortunately, it meant taking Bucky back to the States, where they were both wanted men. 

It was worth the risk to Steve, even though it meant leaving Darcy. God. he missed his girl; they’d barely spoken for weeks. Never had a chance to talk without being interrupted by something or someone. 

"Steve!" 

He turns to find Jane running towards him in a blue and grey dress, her hair pulled back in a fancy twist, and a heavy silver necklace with twisting designs circling her neck. 

"Jane? What are you doing here? What's wrong? Where's Darcy?"

"Nothing's wrong. Darcy's fine. She'll be better when she knows you're here. Why didn't you answer my calls?"

"There was an, uh, incident," Steve says pulling his phone from his pocket. The screen is shattered, the case bent. 

"Is that a bullet hole?"

"Not exactly," Steve says letting Jane tug him down the hall into a room filled with ancient artifacts on display and a few familiar faces in evening wear. "Wait, you called?"

"Doesn't matter now," Jane says, waving the hand not attached to his arm. 

Steve's not listening anymore; all his focus is on Darcy, standing in the small crowd talking with Sam, T'challa, and Dr Cho. She’s' wearing some sort of voluminous black cloak over a red dress with an indecently low neckline that starts a ball of fire burning in his gut to match the giddy warmth of seeing her with his own two eyes. 

Darcy's brow wrinkles and she turns, spotting him blocking the doorway in Jane's wake. Her face lights up and Steve's breath stutters out.

There's a roar in his ears and then Darcy's in his arms. Her head tucks under his chin, and her hands grasp at his shirt, shoulders shaking beneath his touch. He's barely aware of Jane ushering everyone out of the room with T'challa's help. 

"Fuck, I missed you," Steve says into Darcy's hair. He breathes in the clean scent of her hair, kisses her temple and the shell of her ear. 

"My makeup's ruined, you asshole," Darcy says with a watery laugh. 

“Still beautiful.”

“Such a liar,” She kisses him then, rocking up on her toes. Just brief press of lips,nowhere near enough. Whatever words Steve wanted to say fly from his mind as he cradles Darcy's face in his rough hands. He kisses the tears shining on her cheeks and slants his mouth over hers. A burst of citrus hits his tongue as it glides against Darcy's.

Steve pushes the cape off her shoulders and Darcy's breath hiccups in her lungs as she pulls back from the kiss. "Wow, just wow," Darcy says resting her forehead on Steve's chest. 

"Missed my girl," Steve laughs breathlessly. His hands slide up and down her back until Darcy looks back up at him. "Love you."

Darcy smiles, bright and crooked with tears shining in her eyes. "I love you too, but we need to stop before I climb you like a tree."

"I wouldn't say no to that. Been a while," he says, dropping his eyes to the heaving swell of her breasts, ready to spill from her dress.

"Tell me about it."

The red fabric of Darcy's dress is smooth under his palms as Steve moves them down to circle Darcy's waist. She grasps his wrists and moves his hands onto her abdomen. A frown wrinkles his brow and he glances down at the curve of his hands over the rounded swell of her belly. 

"Wha..." he says. The bit of his brain that is so good at puzzles and strategies utterly fails him. His eyes flicker up and down, from Darcy's worried eyes, her red lip caught between her teeth, to his hands over the bump of her abdomen. "Darcy...?"

"Yes?"

"Are...are you?"

"Up the duff? Bun in the oven? All those weird old timey expressions you old folks use? I'm pregnant. You're gonna be a dad."

Steve blinks, his brain shutting down. His hands tremble over Darcy's belly. Long seconds stretch out.

"Please say something. You're freaking me out."

"You're having a baby?" Steve says, his brain finally, finally moving at speed. Darcy nods, her bottom lip trembling, and more tears swimming in her eyes. The beat of his heart kicks up a notch, the knot in his belly twisting and reshaping into something different, something lighter and a lot like hope. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.” He reaches up to cradle her cheek, swiping the tears from beneath her right eye. “I never thought. I didn’t think it was possible. A baby.”

“We had a lot of sex, so it was a possibility.”

“Yeah, we did,” Steve says, a smile ghosting across his lips echoing the curve of his palm across the firm swell of Darcy’s belly. 

“Is it...Are you happy? Because I didn’t think I was gonna be happy but I am and just, he’s there, and I can feel him move, like this tickly fluttery feeling at night and everything’s changing and I didn’t want to tell you till you were here, or there, or, you know, in person. With the Accords and Bucky and Wanda...God. everything is such a mess. I don’t know what I’m doing, Jane thinks I’m an idiot, which is probably true considering she’s a superbrain who managed to not get knocked up by her boyfriend, the literal fertility god and here I am, just, I’m a mess,” Darcy says. She rubs the back of her hand beneath her nose, smearing the lipstick covering her top lip. 

“Darcy, breathe,” Steve says, dragging his hand down to the curve of Darcy’s neck, the pad of his thumb resting at the hinge of her jaw. Darcy’s eyes narrow to dangerous slits. It was true that she was a mess, but far less of a mess than he himself was. “I am happy. I didn’t expect it is all.”

“Jane said to call and tell you, and I wanted to, so, so badly. I wanted you home.”

“I would have come home.”

“I know, so that’s why I didn’t tell you. I know I’m not the center of your world, and before you say anything to make me melt, I know this. I know you love me, I know I am a part of your life, and I know that you love me, but I’m not the only one in your life and the people you care about matter too. You needed to be a hero and you needed to save your friends.”

“I love you,” Steve says. He kisses her forehead and the tip of her nose. “Just one thing.” 

“What?”

“Did you practice that speech?”

“Of course I practiced it,” Darcy says, lifting her chin up. She deflates a little after that, scrubbing at the tear tracks down her neck and sniffling. “God, I’m a mess.”

“You aren’t any more of a mess that me, sweetheart.”

“True,” Darcy says, breath hitching halfway through the word. “You really are a mess.”

“I’m trying not to be.

“I know,” she says. 

“I don’t always know how to be happy-”

“Understatement.”

“But this, us together, you having my baby, our baby, this makes me happy,” Steve says. There are tears welling in his eyes, but he doesn’t give a damn about that. His girl is here and having his baby. His chest feels tight, a warm ache that is nothing like the crushing weight the last few months have brought. 

“Good answer,” Darcy says stepping closer, erasing the space between them. She burrows into Steve’s chest, clinging to him like a limpet. Steve holds onto her as tight as he dares, thoughts whirling in his head as his heart slows to sync with Darcy’s.


End file.
